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Intel hit with three class-action lawsuits over chip flaws

Intel is facing at least three class-action lawsuits over massive security vulnerabilities in its computer chips that came to light this week.

The lawsuits were filed in California, Oregon and Indiana, according The Guardian. The three cases focus on the delay in Intel disclosing the Meltdown and Spectre cyber-flaws, which make it and others firms' chips vulnerable to hackers.

The company was first notified of the two vulnerabilities in June 2016, but did not publicly disclose them until this week after researchers brought them forward. The company said it had planned to make vulnerabilities public next week.

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The lawsuits also allege that the patches to fix the vulnerabilities will cause computers to operate more slowly.

Intel has disputed that claim, saying in a statement, “Contrary to some reports, any performance impacts are workload-dependent, and, for the average computer user, should not be significant and will be mitigated over time.”

Legal experts believe that more lawsuits over the vulnerabilities will follow. Experts suspect that the number of computers affected, which includes Intel chips created all the way back to 1995, means that more consumer suits will be filed in addition to lawsuits from companies who are also affected.

The vulnerabilities also affect the cloud systems of Amazon, Google and Apple. Computer chips made by AMD, Qualcomm and ARM are also vulnerable to the security flaw.